The Mechanical Turk

An 18th-century automaton that could beat the world's leading minds at chess: what was The Mechanical Turk's secret?

Ever wished you hadn’t spoken in haste? Having boasted he could do better than the illusionists at the Viennese Imperial Court, civil servant Wolfgang von Kempelen found himself taken up on the offer by Maria-Theresa, the Empress of Austria-Hungary. A thriver under pressure, in 1770 Kempelen returned and unveiled an automaton that had all the skills of a chess master. And wore a turban.

The Mechanical Turk was a sensation. It would beat most opponents inside half an hour and pitch a gear-grinding tantrum if you tried to trick it playing illegal moves. Kempelen was ordered to take his marvel on tour, where it defeated Benjamin Franklin. Even after Kempelen’s death the Turk continued to play, counting Napoleon Bonaparte among its victims.

It’s surprising how many witnesses were taken in by the Turk – there was of course a chess master secreted within the cabinet. But this was an age of progress, and one of the Turk’s defeated foes, computer pioneer Charles Babbage, left wondering if a chess-playing machine could really be constructed. Odd to think that the beginnings of the computer age can be traced to a wooden racial stereotype designed by a civil servant in a tight spot.

Mark Blackmore has written for many diverse publications including Men’s Health, BBC History, Countryfile, Focus, The World of Cross Stitching and Sabotage Times. He recently published The Wager, a novel about a bet between God and Lucifer.

To read more curious history tales, download iPad issue 2 or buy our first print edition of Ernest Journal

Nautical slang

Tall tales, salted meat residue and illegitimate sprogs: the history of seafaring slang reveals as many dubious habits as strange sayings, as Duncan Wright discovers

dogsbody, n 

Usage: colloq. A person who is given menial tasks, esp. a junior in an office. 

Etymology: During the Napoleonic wars, the navy supplied a notoriously poor diet for sailors, the worst of which was a pease pudding called ‘dogsbody’.The term soon became amalgamated with those who had to eat it; the lowest class who were tasked with menial and arduous tasks.

far-fetched, adj 

Usage: An argument of strained pedigree or questionable relevance. 

Etymology: 15th-century explorers brought home bizarre produce from previously unknown locations.These novel items became known as far- fetched goods.The explorers also told stories of the people and places they had seen, which were heavily embellished and treated with scepticism.

slush fund, n 

Usage: A fund used to supplement the salaries of government employees. 

Etymology: Before refrigeration, salt was the primary means of preserving food on ships. Salted meat was kept in barrels below decks. Once eaten, a mixture of meat residue, salt and fat remained.This foul slush was commonly sold and the proceeds or ‘slush fund’ used to buy luxuries for the officers.

son of a gun, n 

Usage: colloq. An epithet ascribing contempt, esp. toward males. Also used to convey shock or dissatisfaction. 

Etymology: One of questionable paternity conceived or delivered on the gun deck. It was not uncommon for prostitutes to live aboard ships. If the father of a baby was unknown, the ship’s log would detail the newborn a ‘son of a gun’.

turning a blind eye

Usage: idiom. Conscious disregard or ignorance of a situation or information. Etymology: When engaged with the Danish-Norwegian fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, the commander of the British forces sent a flag signal to Nelson, ordering him to withdraw. Nelson is said to have raised his telescope to his blind eye and claim that he could see nothing of the sort.

Read more curious tales, including the quest for our forgotten sea monsters and the history of the magnetic compass in print issue 1 and iPad issue 2 of Ernest Journal, on sale now. 

Millican Dalton: The Adventurous Spirit

Adventurous spirits all over the world can relate to Millican Dalton’s dream. In fact, many still talk of this self-styled "Professor of Adventure", who famously lived in a cave in the Borrowdale Valley, in the English Lake District, in the early 1900s. We journey into the world of Millican Dalton – who gave up his city life to seek romance and freedom.

“Forty years ago I was working as a clerk in a city office. Day after day I went to the office at the same time. But this was not the life for me. I gave up my job in the commercial world and set out to seek romance and freedom.”

— Millican Dalton, 1933 (while clinging to a large beech tree)

You could say Millican Dalton was the original outdoorsman. Even though his family moved from Cumberland to London when he was very young, Millican’s early childhood was spent climbing trees and mountaineering out of bedroom windows. By his late teens, Millican was exploring further afield with his brother Henry. Their bicycles loaded with heavy camping gear, they explored the Lake District, Scotland and Wales, making a hobby out of experimenting with lightweight equipment that would ease their long journeys.  

As a young adult, Millican fell in love with the Lake District. He and his brother spent every public holiday they could, camping in the Borrowdale and Wasdale Valleys – prime locations for hiking and climbing. They became engrossed in the outdoor scene that was emerging. At the time of the golden era of British rock-climbing, they were among the first to discover this adventurous outdoor lifestyle in the Lake District.

In search of Romance and Freedom

It might not come as a surprise that Millican was stifled in an office job. His office-bound career as a fire insurance clerk got in the way of the outdoor adventures he loved. He developed a powerful urge to live his life in the open, and he certainly lived out the dream.

In 1904 Millican famously left his job and conventional life behind, setting out to “seek romance and freedom." He defined these ideals in intriguing ways: "romance" as exploring one’s own personality and the potential of the mind; focussing on one’s passions and creative spirit (regardless of rules and protocol) and connecting with nature in order to appreciate its beauty. Millican’s number one priority was "non-conformation with society’s expectations." He really did break free.

“Use is everything. We dress too much, we eat too much, almost everything we do is too much. Put a man to it and see what he can come up with.”

— Millican Dalton

Wild camping in Borrowdale

Becoming a mountain guide was just the start of Millican’s original take on life. His new business led him to set up a living camp in the Borrowdale Valley. 

First at High Lodore Camp and later in his very own "Cave Hotel", Millican had all he needed – mountains and rocks where he’d share guided adventures, nature and spectacular scenery to enjoy while he cooked over his open fire. Shelter from the Lakeland weather was provided by a cave, which Millican claimed as his own and filled with his very few possessions (the most advanced of which was a sewing machine).

Millican lived with the firm belief that material possessions do not provide happiness and satisfaction. So he honed his campcraft and took great pleasure in his free and simple lifestyle. He became an expert in it.

Millican dressed for functionality never fashion, ate simple meals and focussed only on what he needed. Perhaps his only vices were his “ruling passion” for brewing very strong coffee, which he’d buy in Keswick town centre and lace with syrup, and his habit of smoking Woodbines.

Locals in the Lake District knew Millican as the Borrowdale Hermit. To tourists and aspiring adventures he became known as a leading light, whose guiding services were in great demand. On the inside wall of Millican’s Cave Hotel was an inscription that perhaps sums up his whole approach to life: “Don’t waste words, jump to conclusions”

Professor of Adventure

Millican took his mountain guiding very seriously. He ran a rigorous annual programme of camping tours, mountaineering experiences and "hair-breadth escapes." In the winter months, he grew his income by making camping equipment that he would rent out and sell.

Using everything he knew about the demands of lightweight cycle camping and his unrivalled experience in the outdoor world, Millican designed innovative tents, sleeping bags and rucksacks that were way ahead of his time. His two-man tent weighed less than 3.5 pounds, impressive even by today’s standards. Simple Egyptian cotton with a tight weave was the key – it was light to carry and in rain, the cotton would swell and become waterproof. He transformed woollen Jaeger blankets into sleeping bags, and made rucksacks to order. He called it “handicraft from a years user”.

Millican Dalton was a maverick. He celebrated sustainable living as a truly rewarding lifestyle, well before it became a modern day movement. And his natural affinity with the outdoors no doubt has a legacy in today’s world of challenges and pursuits. He valued romance and freedom over conventional gain and has inspired many others to follow their hearts in the same way. 

Jorrit & Nicky are co-founders of Millican, The Keswick Bag Co. Inspired by Millican Dalton’s life, they founded their company in the Lake District in his name. Millican make bags and accessories for outdoor living and travel, using sustainable materials, timeless styles and designs that are good for life. Read more about Millican Dalton in his biography Millican Dalton: The Life and Times of a Borrowdale Caveman.

Tales from the tool shed

From the haemorrhoid-healing Patron Saint of spades to the Anglo-French battle of who could make the best watering can, Bill Laws encourages you to ponder the trusty mud-caked tools piled up in the corner of your shed, and explore their fascinating, if not rather strange, history...

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Every tool has a tale to tell, it seems, none more so than the rather unremarkable looking gardening tools gathering dust in your shed. Author, gardener and busker Bill Laws has compiled 50 of these tales into one book RHS Tales From The Tool Shed and has given Ernest a peep at some of the good stuff.

The spade

Gertrude Jekyll (1843–1932) offered no-nonsense advice on the spade: “Watch a man digging: then take a spade . . . and do it.” 

During Northern Ireland’s troubles, digging was dangerous. The whisper “Watch out: he digs with the wrong foot" signalled the debate over which foot you used: the right (ostensibly a Protestant preference) or the left (supposedly favoured by Catholics). 

The spade’s patron saint is Saint Fiacre. Offered all the land he could dig in a day for a new monastery, he turned over nine acres at Saint-Fiacre-en-Brie, his digging eclipsed only by his reputation for curing haemorrhoids.

The hoe

The ground is dug, the seeds are sown: now the weeds begin to grow. 

The great outdoors man, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), celebrated the hoe as he worked his bean patch beside Walden Pond in Massachusetts: “Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead.”

Whether you opt for a thrust or a draw hoe, (the first is pushed through the soil, the second drawn back), pay for quality and regularly run a sharpening stone along its leading edge. 

The secateurs

When the first beans come to fruition around June, the gardener hand picks her crop or employs that sensible 19th-century invention, secateurs. 

Count Bertrand de Molleville (1744–1818) escaped the guillotine during the French Revolution and fled to England where, in his spare time, he developed the secateurs. He designed them as an aid for the vigneron pruning the grape vines, but they soon made their mark in the garden.  

Today’s secateurs, essential for trimming roses or cutting hazel wands for peas sticks, range from Swiss-made Felco and Finnish-made Fiskars to Japanese Okatsune snips. 

The watering can 

The French and the English were separated by more than a stretch of water – the English Channel, or as the French say, La Manche – during Victorian times. They were also at odds over the best watering can. 

Matched against the Englishman’s stout, galvanized two-handled can was the French gardener’s arrosoir, its swan-neck so finely balanced that watering required only a light shift of the index finger. Former civil servant John Haws liked the balancing act of the French watering device and began manufacturing his own version at Clapton, London in the 1880s. It turned the watering can into a gardening icon.  

Bill Laws is the author of Tales From The Tool Shed: The History and Use of Fifty Garden Tools and Fifty Plants That Changed the Course of History. Since he started busking with his soprano sax three years ago, he’s been working on a history of street music.

billlaws.com

The Singular Case of Dr Lobsang Rampa: lama, mystic & plumber

As it’s April Fool’s Day, we thought we’d regale you with the true story of a West Country plumber who fell out of a tree while owl-spotting, only to awaken possessed by the spirit of a Tibetan lama. Dr Bramwell introduces Cyril Hoskin, unemployed plumber, yeti startler and best-selling author of The Third Eye.

Written by Dr Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, The Third Eye is an autobiographical account of a wealthy Tibetan growing up in Lhasa where, at the age of seven, he is sent to a Lamasery to study Buddhism.

The book is full of extraordinary stories and adventures. Rampa recounts how he achieved his psychic powers after a painful trepanning-style operation to open up the “third eye” in the middle of his forehead. Elsewhere there are first-hand accounts of levitation, clairvoyance, meetings with the Dalai Lama and even an encounter with the Abominable Snowman: “We looked at each other, both of us frozen with fright for a period which seemed ageless. It was pointing a hand at me and making a curious mewing noise like a kitten. The head had no frontal lobes but seemed to slope back almost directly from the heavy brows. The chin receded greatly and the teeth were large and prominent. As I looked and perhaps jumped with fright, the yeti screeched, turned and leaped away.” Rampa’s book became a global bestseller.

During his first live radio interview, Rampa was confronted with an eager young presenter who had gone to the effort of learning a smattering of Tibetan. The presenter opened with the line “Hello, how are you?” in Tibetan but was met with silence. When informed that he’d just been addressed in Tibetan, Rampa fell to the ground and began to scream in agony. This continued for a good 30 seconds (a long time in radio) before he finally climbed back onto his chair and calmly explained that before leaving Tibet he had put a curse on himself to no longer understand or speak Tibetan, for fear of giving away his secrets. In truth, Lobsang Rampa only spoke English with a curiously strong West Country burr.

Despite a number of detractors – notably Tibetologist Heinrich Harrer who hired a private detective to prove not only that Rampa had never been to Tibet, but that he didn’t even own a passport and was in fact an unemployed plumber called Cyril Hoskin from Plympton in Devon – Rampa went on to write a further 19 books.

In a later interview he cheerfully admitted that he’d never actually been to Tibet but that he was, in fact, possessed by the spirit of a lama. He claimed that after he fell out of a tree in 1956 and lay half-strangled by his binoculars, an elderly lama was passing by on the astral plane and the pair agreed to swap bodies. Whether, at the same time a lama in Tibet was claiming to be a West Country plumber and writing books on how to install a boiler, remains, as yet, unverified...  

An extract from The Singular Case of Dr Lobsang Rampa, in issue one of Ernest Journal. For the full story, scoot over to the App Store to download your copy...

David Bramwell is a writer, performer and radio presenter for BBC Radio 3 and 4. In 2011 he won a Sony Radio Award for The Haunted Moustache, the true account of his search for the owner of a bizarre family heirloom: a Victorian moustache in a box. David publishes his first travel memoir, The No.9 Bus to Utopia, in May this year.